Messageboard - Development

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futureman said:
Interesting enough, both the Columbus Commons Apartments (Highpoint) and the new proposed 7 story building across the street are going to have almost the same amount of retail space – ~24,000sf. Which I find odd considering how much more land the Highpoint apartments are taking up.

I don’t have blueprints to compare, but I would imagine that the difference could be that the retail bays in Highpoint (is that what we’re calling it?) don’t go very deep into the building, so there’s more street frontage but lesser square footage than you’d expect. Perhaps the retail space in the new LC development is deeper or event multi-story? Just a thought…

Walker said:
I don’t recall reading about tax breaks for this project. Can you provide any info on that? I do recall that Carter paid $2 million to purchase the 2-acre site. I’m not exactly sure what that land is supposed to cost, so I’m not sure if $2 million was a fair price or if it was “given to them”.

They are getting a 10 year tax abatement plus $4.5 million of the construction cost from the city.

For some reason beyond my comprehension, the architecture in this city takes a while (a very long while) to catch up with national trends while playing it very safe. I realize there are economics at play here but you cannont convince that this building could not be designed just a little bit better, especially for such a prominant site. If current trends are any indication, the new Lifestyles proposed building will look worse than it does right now after going through the review process. Maybe the CDDC should be required to educate themselves on architectural and planning trends. That wasn’t meant to be a snarky remark. Anyone involved with such important decisions should.

jpizzow said:
For some reason beyond my comprehension, the architecture in this city takes a while (a very long while) to catch up with national trends while playing it very safe. I realize there are economics at play here but you cannont convince that this building could not be designed just a little bit better, especially for such a prominant site.

+1

I myself am tired of red brick buildings. It’s like german village and arena district are trying to meet in the middle.

Well, to be fair, any city can have a ceremony to hand out awards for the best of their respective new developments. There will always be something considered the best of the rest even if the “best” is largely considered by the public as anything but. The problem isn’t that there are no structures worthy of architectural excellence in Columbus. The problem I have, and I suspect many of us have, is that there are too few newer structures worthy of architectural recognition in Columbus. In other words, for every project that receives a positive public reaction, there seems to be five others that don’t. Most of those projects that win awards for good architecture are publicly funded/civic projects. The problem with privately financed projects is that developers will give up details here and there to keep construction costs down or rents for their target markets down. The trick is figuring out a way to work in those little details here and there without breaking the bank.

jpizzow said:
The problem isn’t that there are no structures worthy of architectural excellence in Columbus.

Well, your original statement came across as if you were saying that there was zero architectural excellence in Columbus. I was just pointing out that there is plenty of new development that looks great.

I see that I’m in the minority here, but to me this is fine. It fits in with the other things that have been going up in the neighborhood, and it has a lot of mass to it, which will look good along the street. Yes, it looks like it could’ve been built in “Any City, USA,” but when I think “Any City, USA,” I think DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston…because this is exactly the type of thing they build when they do infill projects. The only difference is the height. I think it’s gonna look great once it’s built, and it’s really going to add to a walkable feel along that stretch of High Street.

My main concern is that they are bringing enough people into downtown that all those vacant storefronts will finally start to fill in. I think this can help that process along.